Veteran Squad Leader

[matttheficus]

Reviving the work I put into this now that I have time. Argh.

About the pull request

Project Goals

• Create a variant of the squad leader role that occupies the same slot and responsibilities, that is automatically applied to CO whitelistees.
• Create custom visuals in the form of armor, icons, etc. exclusively for the role.
• Modify the existing leadership skill traits to allow for the role to use certain abilities specific to the CO role, without ones that it would otherwise not need.

Veteran Squad Leader

Veteran Squad Leaders are grizzled, seasoned leaders from amongst the Corps most battle-tested units. They often wear modified M3 Pattern Armor made to adapt to unusual combat scenarios and personal proclivities, and are typically seen brandishing heavily customized sidearms.

RANK: First Sergeant (ME-8E)

Special Equipment

On top of the usual Squad Leader gear, the Veteran SL, through the same vendor, should have special access to a subcategory of armor and weapons uniquely available to them.

• M3 Modified Armor "A", functionally a reskin of B12 armor. This armor features both a shoulder pauldron and plated sleeve.

• M3 Modified Armor "B", functionally a reskin of M4 armor. Spall guard and pauldron on left shoulder.

• M3 Modified Armor "C", functionally a reskin of light armor. Sleeveless variation.

• M11 Pattern Modified Helmet, nothing special, just a slightly altered squad leader helmet with an external comms module.

• Twin VP78M6 Pistols with holster rig. The VP78M6, often called the 'Mod Six', or just 'Sixes', are enhanced variants of the VP78 combat pistol. Smoother trigger assemblies, formed grips, longer shrouded barrels. These M6's have been modified to have special counterweights in the receivers and under the barrels to resist muzzle climb, allowing for much better handling, so much better, in fact, that holding just one doesn't feel right.

Explain why it's good for the game

Squad leadership is extremely important to the player experience, and we at CM Inc. are happy to give a little carrot to those who are willing to step into the driver's seat with higher expectations of roleplay.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots & Videos
Put screenshots and videos here with an empty line between the screenshots and the <details> tags.

Changelog

🆑 Thwomper, mattheficus
add: Veteran Squad Leader, an alternate SL variation for CO whitelist holders.
/:cl:

[Detective-Google]

Discussed internally with thwomp prior but seeing as they're presumably not available to forward it anymore, I have a few pretty significant concerns that I'd like to see addressed about this before we consider 'sending it'
( this is mostly a rehash of the internal thread here: here )

• CO/XO dynamic
  the CO-XO dynamic as it stands exists in a state where XO as a job is kinda a joke to a lot of people, there are very few 'serious' XO mains and most people only ever play it as a stepping stone to play CO, which is in every respect really a straight upgrade, in terms of respect, kit, rulings, etc, When you deploy an XO it's seen as a joke, when you deploy the blue star people follow-

To me, adding a whitelisted version of squad leader would effectively propagate this same effect to the SL dynamic, a job where you already have to work extremely hard to maintain a reputation as a leader worth following, put in a ton of playtime to get the GySgt title before people stop seeing you as a joke, etc-- there would be no reason to roll the normal SL other than as a stepping stone to unlock "SL but people take it seriously"

Thus far discussing this concept I've only really heard was that we already have significant stratification and that it can't really get worse and so increasing it is worth it for better ground leadership-- which I don't find particularly compelling.

There's an argument made as well that there simply won't be a supply of VSL players to offset the requirement for normal SLs-- but again I don't really find this compelling, we have a lot of rounds a day with no CO but it still has an extremely strong devaluing effect on XO even in rounds where it isn't present; because it's a matter of community culture.

With that said I don't think the core idea that we need to incentivize good leaders to play is bad; just that this PR addresses in a way that priviledges extremely community active players over average ones. I'd encourage you to look more into additions that encourage all SLs to be good leaders; instead of privileging a few who are already vetted as such. Some examples that came up during maintainer discussion about the original PR as good steps were the trench whistles; which buff your squad strongly but apply a minor debuff to yourself, as well as looking at how games like "Squad" incentivize playing a good leader with mechanics like rally points/marks/access to the command channel.

[Harrysno]

To me, adding a whitelisted version of squad leader would effectively propagate this same effect to the SL dynamic, a job where you already have to work extremely hard to maintain a reputation as a leader worth following, put in a ton of playtime to get the GySgt title before people stop seeing you as a joke, etc-- there would be no reason to roll the normal SL other than as a stepping stone to unlock "SL but people take it seriously"

I see no issue with people rolling SL and playing their asses off on it in the pursuit of unlocking vSL. If it serves to actually raise the standards of SL and Squad Leadership in general (I.e. people playing FTL when they can't roll SL), I'd say mission accomplished. Either way, there would not be a vSL and an SL in the same squad as they're meant to occupy the same spot. If someone is in Delta and has an SL while Alpha has a vSL, Alpha's Lead has no ability to order Delta around. Just as the CMO can't order MPs around, different groupings.

With that said I don't think the core idea that we need to incentivize good leaders to play is bad; just that this PR addresses in a way that priviledges extremely community active players over average ones. I'd encourage you to look more into additions that encourage all SLs to be good leaders; instead of privileging a few who are already vetted as such. Some examples that came up during maintainer discussion about the original PR as good steps were the trench whistles; which buff your squad strongly but apply a minor debuff to yourself, as well as looking at how games like "Squad" incentivize playing a good leader with mechanics like rally points/marks/access to the command channel.

I am of the opinion that SLs are already capable of doing a great deal with the tools they already have, the issue is that people do not listen. I'm not a big fan of giving SLs a host of new tools that get people to follow them around just because they want buffs, people should be following their SLs around because their SLs are good leaders that keep them informed of the goings-on of the battle. The addition of vSL is meant to function as a predecessor to a CIC rework that's in the works (which I'd be happy to expand upon in DMs), but has been sitting on the backburner pending the merging or not-merging of ASS.

I do think that increasing the importance of SLs and changing CIC's manner of interacting with them is possible without mechanical reinforcement, but I think adding something that is simply cool and fun to play around with rather than mechanically powerful is the better way to reinforce that culture shift. I am happy to expand on any or all of it on discord to avoid clogging up the comments, though.

[sippykot]

Just give it as a playtime reward for platinum SLs to incentivize people to play SL more. Not more content that's locked behind a popularity contest.

[matttheficus]

Just give it as a playtime reward for platinum SLs to incentivize people to play SL more. Not more content that's locked behind a popularity contest.

Playtime != competence nor a desire to actually RP a senior NCO leading marines.

If I can get CO with ~230h total in CM, anyone can. Its not a popularity contest - its a "are you capable of the bare minimum" check.

[cuberound]

codewise, for the armors make them leader subtypes of the light m4 and so on, as right now they are NOT just reskins with how it is coded. For example the light variant inherits stronger light range of the leader armor and stronger light power of medium armor (5 4 compared to light 4 3). The way it is made right now also means they will not inherit any changes made to the armors they are supposed to be reskins of in the future by default. DO NOT just fix the light range, there is more for sure, change them to be correct subtypes aka light/mod not medium/leader/mod

[cm13-github]

Test merge deployment history:

Test Merge Deployed @ 03/19/2026 16:34:24 +00:00:

Server Instance

CM13 Live

Revision

Origin: 288df60
Pull Request: d1ca079
Server: d16d4de

Test Merge Removed @ 03/19/2026 17:51:17 +00:00:

Server Instance

CM13 Live

[Detective-Google]

above review about the armor from cuber

[Detective-Google]

spawning one of these drops the standard VP78 laser on the ground on top of it, which isnt meant to be obtainable/removable

[Detective-Google]

squad leader job becomes "WHITELISTED" mid-round (this was with all SL slots full if it matters, 3 SL 1 VSL.) this was also the case for someone with CO whitelist.